Bristol Good Food Awards 2016

Voting has now begun for the 2016 Bristol Good Food Awards.  if you enjoy feasting on a pie or adding a zing to the start of the day with our marmalade or fire in your belly with our  chutneys we'd love you to vote for us!  You can click here and vote in the following categories:

Best Local Preserve

Best Local Pickle

Best Local Pie

Thank you,

Louise & Leo x

Recipe: Snowdrop Cottage Seville Orange Marmalade

As promised here is our Snowdrop Cottage marmalade recipe.  I use fairly large quantities as there seems little point in only making a few jars!  The quantities stated will work well in a Maslin sized pan without causing any problems bubbling over. Roughly speaking 3kgs of Seville oranges will provide about 18 jars (340g).

Ingredients

3kgs Seville oranges

4 Lemons

9 Pints water

5kg Sugar

Method

1.  Wash the oranges and lemons. Peel the skin and then slice into fine shreds and add to your pan.

2.  Cut the oranges and lemons in half and  squeeze the juice from them retaining the pips to one side.

3.  Add the juice to the pan.

4.  Add the water to the pan.

5. Tie the pips in a bag of muslin and add to the water and shredded fruit skin.

6. Simmer until the skin has become soft and the liquid reduced by about half.

7.  Stir the sugar in and allow it to dissolve completely over a low heat.  If you rush this stage and fail to dissolve the sugar properly crystals will form in your finished marmalade.

8. Once fully dissolved bring your marmalade up to a rolling boil.

9. Once setting point has been reached allow the marmalade to cool slightly before pouring into sterilised jars.

Enjoy!

Christmas at Snowdrop Cottage

Christmas has arrived at Snowdrop Cottage!

We've been really busy at Snowdrop Cottage HQ over the last few weeks planning, prepping and tasting our new range.  We've a few new marmalades for you - a wonderfully boozy Orange and Whisky as well as our Ruby Red Grapefruit and Vodka for those wanting a little extra oomph!  Of course we have our traditional marmalades too for those who like a traditional offering or feel they have enough Christmas mojo without the need for extras!

Back by popular demand we bring you our delicious Christmas Puddings. Our Traditional pudding is made with butter, bramley apples and of course lashings of Brandy. We also have our 'Gingerbread & Cranberry' Christmas pudding with cranberries, toasted pecans and oranges.  Each one it goes without saying is made with Shipton Mill Organic Flour and our free range eggs.  Deliciously light and moorish they've become a must for many Christmas tables over the last few years.  This year we've even had new labels designed which I hope you'll love as much as we do!

Of course Christmas is a hectic time for so many of us, so with this in mind we offer some fabulous gift ideas.  Our gift boxes can be filled with a choice of three preserves, chutneys or honey or if you're looking for something a little larger we can also offer you our hamper, complete with bow and gift tag, wrapped and ready to give. These proved very popular last year and are very versatile.

Please come and see us at any of our events we're attending up to Christmas, or if we're not local to you we're happy to post - just drop us a line!  We're kicking off our first event at Henleaze Festival on Wednesday 3rd December so come a long and say hello!

Whiteladies Road and Tobacco Factory Markets

Our delicious sweet potato, wilted spinach & goats cheese pie!

The weather is looking rather good for the weekend and already we're thinking about what we're going to bake for our lovely customers.  This weekend we have a surprise in stall though... a new pie for our vegetarian customers.  At Whiteladies Road market (click here for details) we'll be bringing you our:

 'Beetroot, potato and creme fraiche pie'

  We've already given it a road test and we think it's rather wonderful, but we'd like you to let us know what you think!  We'll also be there with our rather renowned 'tipsy' bread pudding.

We ensure our fruit is steeped in our alcohol of choice overnight to bring you a decadent treat for your weekend.

We'll be at the Tobacco Factory (click here for info) on Sunday once again, we're thrilled to have a regular spot at this popular market and can't wait to meet new customers.  We'll have all our freshly baked goods to keep you well fed and a selection of our award winning preserves and marmalades.

Enquiries have already started flooding in for our Elderflower Cordial - we were overwhelmed with the success of our cordial and  within 6 weeks all our supplies had sold out! This time we'll be out in force picking as much elderflower as possible to ensure lots of satisfied customers. Keep an eye out from May onwards!

Nigel Slater - a secret marmalade lover too!

There isn't much Nigel Slater can do wrong in my eyes, in fact I'll admit it now, I have a crush on him, in purely foody terms.  Even more so when I found out, like me he also loves nothing more than whiling away an afternoon making this luscious offering.  At Snowdrop Cottage we await the arrival of the Seville oranges with great anticipation, for this is truly the queen of fruits when it comes to marmalade making.  With Saturday Live on the radio, the children occupied and a busy husband the kitchen becomes my haven to indulge in this yearly ritual.